Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Your Neighbourhood Name: whose right to choose?
The rebranding of our neighbourhood is about to become a live issue again with the Council asserting its claimed right to choose what we're called for the signage to be erected as part of the 2013 regeneration work.
The tussle over Harringay's name has been going on for over a hundred years. Throughout that time it seems to have featured a struggle between the Council, on the one hand, claiming a right to choose and the local people, on the other, demanding a right to self-determination.
Over a hundred years ago, and long before the creation of Haringey borough, Hornsey District Council decided to change the spelling of Harringay Neighbourhood to Haringey. Local people took exception at this imposition from above and resisted the change. The opinion was expressed by, amongst others, the Harringay Ratepayers Association who represented the people of one of three Harringay Wards. Theirs was in part of what is now St Ann's Ward. The legacy of the struggle can be seen today in the signage along the Harringay Passage.
Local people won the day then and our name was safe until the latter part of the last century when the Council administration decided they had a right to change Harringay's name. Haringey Councillor and cabinet member, Nilgun Canver explained a couple of years back:
Too much emphasis on Harringay confuses everyone with the borough Haringey and I’m afraid it refers to the Harringay ward and excludes the Gardens
It's odd to see the modern day Haringey Labour party, erstwhile representatives of the people, following in the footsteps of the Tory burghers of Hornsey Council. Moreover, I'm afraid this argument just doesn't wash with me. The inhabitants of countless other London boroughs seem to manage perfectly well with boroughs and towns that bear the same name. Islington, Hackney, Camden, Enfield and many others all survive. Perhaps the real issue is that a name was chosen that doesn't share the same name as the Council's chosen administrative capital as it is the case for all the other London boroughs I've mentioned. Their vanity perhaps requires that it should do so. But is this reason enough for us to be stripped of our historical name?
For many people, this whole issue may seem esoteric and rather irrelevant. However, I'm not alone in taking a rather different view. My belief is that for our neighbourhood to thrive and for people to identify with it, it needs to have a single name. Right now, as the traders magazine posted through your door just before Christmas bears witness, we have at least three names. How can our identity and distinctiveness be developed when this is the case.
I said just now that I wasn't alone in taking a stance on this. In New York, Democrat Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries thought the principle involved in the issue was so important that he introduced the Neighbourhoods Identity Act, requiring New York City to develop a community-oriented process of community agreement before neighbourhoods can be rebranded or boundaries redefined.
I'm with you Hakeem.
So then, which name? The current variants are:
- the original Harringay
- Harringay Green Lanes
- Green Lanes
Others have been suggested including Harringay Park and Harringay Village.
My choice is simple. I stick with Harringay. Why? Two reasons. Firstly, that's the name we've had for 130 years and I see no need to change it. Secondly, the other names don't work for me. Green Lanes is a road that runs from Newington Green to Enfield. If avoidance of confusion is the aim, this doesn't do it. Harringay Green Lanes is a three word name. Three word names don't stick. Most of them tend to get abbreviated to the first word of the name anyway. Kingston-upon-Thames for example is more commonly called Kingston. St Martins in the Fields is known as St Martins, and so on.
I suppose there is a third reason for me and that's just that I don't like people asserting rights over me that I don't believe they have. I don't believe that the Council or the Green Lanes Strategy Group have the right to change the name of the place I live in, no matter how much good work they may do. That just bridles. No, I'm with the thoroughly democratic instincts of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Even if I am a voice in the wilderness, I say if there's any need to tinker with the name of our neighbourhood, then let the community decide what it should be.
In 2013, as things stand the Council and the Green Lanes Strategy Group will assert their right to brand your neighbourhood as they see fit as part of the Harringay regeneration project. I was promised that the community would be given the right to choose and to influence the way that choice was made. In a few recent email exchanges I have detected the possibility of more than a little back-pedaling on this issue.
So, once I have written this post, I will email Councillor Canver, Chair of the Green Lanes Strategy Group to ask for her public commitment that the community be given the determining voice in what our neighbourhood is called.
Amendment
The following paragraphs were added as a comment to this thread by the original author on 5th Jan 2013. Since they cover key issues, and I have been told the comment is hard to find, I have copied them in below:
Having picked up on Alan's suggestion to refer to the legal situation for changing an area's name, a relatively quick spin through sources available has turned up some interesting information.
1. A neighbourhood name has no legal status.
2. The closest approximation for any legal status is contained in quasi-legal or "official" gazettes, such as the Royal Mail's PAF Gazette.
However, even though the information they contain is official rather than legal, it's fascinating to see what lengths the Royal Mail has to go to in order to change the name of a neighbourhood.
Their guidance details a three month consultation process in order to allow changing the name of a neighbourhood in its gazette. The process includes writing to every address affected as well as the MP and other official bodies.
3. Street names and numbers are governed by law, as Alan was told. The relevant legislation is the Public Health Acts Amendment Act of 1907. It says:
The local authority may, with the consent of two-thirds in number of the ratepayers, and persons who are liable to pay an amount in respect of council tax, in any street, alter the name of such street or any part of such street.
So, there is no law that governs the naming of neighbourhoods, but there are principles of justice aplenty that should guide the Council in how it behaves in a situation when it seeks to change an area's name.
As Planning Organisation, Planning Sanity puts it, a neighbourhood is:
" an area where inhabitants live and that it is their state of mind as to what constitutes their neighbourhood. A neighbourhood should not be seen to correspond to any legal or physical division, but more as a social concept, the evidence for which may be given by the people who live there."
If we take as a precedent the principles enshrined both in law and official practice and the opinion of urban experts, I can find no precedent or reference to any principle of justice which suggests that a name change can or should be imposed from above by a person, group of persons or body. At every turn I find evidence confirming my belief that the naming of a neighbourhood belongs to the people who inhabit it and should only be changed with painstaking consultation. It seems extraordinary then that any elected member or officer should even be considering taking it upon themselves or a small semi-official body to rename a neighbourhood however well meaning might be their intent.
In other areas where a change has been sought, consultations have been the norm. Staines is the most recent example.
It's difficult not to wonder, if a Council is prepared to cut corners on allowing local people self-determintaion in less weighty situations such as this, where else are such 'efficiencies' made at the cost of democratic justice?
I remain convinced that unless and until we have a proper process whereby local residents approve a change, the Council should in all documents refer to Harringay as Harringay.
Tags for Forum Posts: glsg, harringay name
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Actually I've been keeping an eye on the benefits cap for a while and first raised the possible impact on Haringey's families just under a year ago last February. At that time only matt and injetpack showed much interest and I only got 175 views.
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Permalink Reply by rebelrebel on
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I'm in complete agreement with you, Zena. This is such a non-story. The number of spleens that have been vented and the amount of venom which has been emitted on this thread is both depressing and shocking, particularly when it is directed against people in the area who have worked long and hard to improve it.
The points you make about the impending benefits cap experiment are salutary, and this is much more likely to adversely affect people who live here rather than changing (or not changing) the name of the neighbourhood.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for putting the alternative view rebelrebel, but I'm still not sure I understand the objections. I've just skimmed through the thread again and I don't really see any spleen or venom. Perhaps I missed it. Can you point me to the parts you object to.
As to whether any time should be given to this issue, I explained why I think it's relevant in the opening post. I've already responded to Zena to say that I recognise there are more fundamental issues at stake right now. We're already covering the other issues she mentioned as well as countless others, both serious and light hearted. I'd agree with your criticism if this issue was the only or main focus of the site, but it's just one of scores of threads on the go. I think that no matter how challenging life gets most of us have room in our lives, on HoL and elsewhere, for more than just the weightiest of issues.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Stillman on
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The other day I was watching Hard Talk on the BBC News Channel and the presenter Stephen Sackur commented to Michael Heseltine, "In recent weeks much of the political oxygen in this country has been sucked up by the discussion about benefits". I agree. It's an important issue and I'm glad that it's been raised on this site, but I'd far rather attention is paid to truly local local issues here. I'm glad there's a place to talk about the issues that affect the place in which I live. I can talk about the benefits issue anywhere and everywhere.
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I don't think LCSP have any mandate to represent the Ladder. It seems to me that most people on the Ladder don't know anything about them.
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Actually, all the councillors for Harringay Ward, Gina, Karen and David, live on the Ladder. Nilgun, councillor for St Ann's Ward lives on the Ladder too.
Are we unusual in Harringay Ward that all our local councillors are also residents of their ward? Thinking about it probably not, but it is quite common for a ward councillor to not be a resident. The leader of the council Claire Kober, for example, represents Seven Sisters ward but actually lives in Muswell Hill. It's down to local parties at ward level to select candidates. Being a resident in the ward isn't necessarily a key factor in making a good councillor, although no doubt it helps if you are at least close to the ward that you represent and see it everyday.
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Thérese, Nilgun is a Ladder resident while representing St Anns. I think that gives her at least as good a residential claim as the rest of us. If she'd only got her road as smoothly paved as Gina's, before she inherited Brian H's old job, I'd find my regular trudge to Iceland and Yasar Halim much more enjoyable.
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If you go back into the history of the GLSG, it was set up to be very representative. I think it was as representative as it could have been in 2001. It worked in the way it did in reaction to the circumstances it found itself (i.e. clearing up after one of the nastiest drug lords in the world).
It may well be, given the problems that councils have engaging local residents, that the current status is as good as things will get. I guess all I'd ask is that every effort is made to include more people more often, earlier on in an issue. I'd also welcome a review of the way it links up with the Area Forum.
In the meantime, whilst I don't always share the majority view of the group, I do support it and the good work it does. I'm very keen to focus on the issue here and not the players.
As to the LCSP, whilst I've already said that I don't think it carries a mandate for issues such as the one we're discussing on this thread, I do support the work Ian does. It's tough for any residents' group anywhere in the country to get broad support, but as is the case with the GLSG, I think we're all better off for its existence.
I have put HoL at the disposal of all local residents groups. That offer remains as open today as it was in July 2007.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I notice in the latest LCSP minutes that Cllr Canver has changed her argument retrospectively. I say that she is changing the name of Harringay to "Harringay Green Lanes" and she says that she is not dropping the name Harringay!
I also note that she has accused Hugh of creating a storm in a tea cup "very skilfully". The cheek!
To paraphrase "Local politician accuses local resident of running a skilful campaign to raise support for his issue". It's no longer about the name for me, it's about how our local politicians seem to "know best" and be in total opposition to us. The best they can say about their "support" is that some people just don't think it's a big deal. The ONLY people wanting to change the name of Harringay to "Harringay Green Lanes" are the council and the traders. At least when the British arrived in a new land they sometimes had a stab at asking the locals what they called it.
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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I can't agree more John. I want to highlight one of your points so i'll repeat it again:
The best they can say about their "support" is that some people just don't think it's a big deal.
One positive thing coming out of this is a greater awareness of the GLSG and what it does, but its a shame for them thats coming with more awareness of its lack of transparency and accountability which isn't reflecting particularly well on some of its members.
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"very skilfully" - sounds like you should be asking the councillor for a reference on Linked in, Hugh. Quick, strike while the iron is hot!
Unless, of course I'm misinterpreting that and the councillor is using a public meeting to criticise a resident I take it wasn't present. No, the councillor wouldn't do that though...surely.
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Hugh's LinkedIn profile kicks a*se already.
Just to stop your second paragraph going down the wrong place. Neither Hugh nor Cllr Canver were present at the LCSP meeting concerned and Ian Sygrave quotes an email from Cllr Canver. That's right, it's in an email which is copied and pasted into the minutes.
It's now just about nobody in power wanting Hugh to "have his way", which is childish.
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